Does language define your identity?

fab   Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:01 pm GMT
"I can't stress this anymore than I have Fab. Where do you get this "American-Anglophone" categorization from? Culturally, I am not Welsh or English-American at all, as my father and his family has had abosultely no impact on me at all. I never see them. I have been raised in a Mexican-American family, 100% of my life. You should come to my house, or to my family get-togethers, which we have every week, and see how "Anglo" the culture and environment is. If you called my grandfather an "Anglo-sajon" he'd probably punch you in the face! And secondly, I don't identify with my father so much in terms of ethnicity, because I look nothing like the man! I mean that. I look exactly like my mother and her side of the family. If you saw me, and my maternal uncles, you would think I was one of their sons. You can't even tell me and my father are related, based on looks that is. "



Okay, where do you live? I want to verify your statement.



"I don't think so. I couldn't imagine a world without different ethnicities. I like variety. I love experiencing different cultures, different viewpoints, different phenotypes, different languages. I like how black people look so clearly different from white people, and all the different races for that matter. Each racial phenotype has its own beauty. If we didn't have different races, the earth would be as boring as all food tasting the same. It's thinking that one race is superior than another, or destined to exterminate the others that is alarming. "


Black people all look the same, just like Asians. Caucasians are so easily distinguishable. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Don't question my opinion, little boy.
Presley.   Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:54 pm GMT
The United States is a nation of IMMIGRANTS, with the exception of Native Americans, regardless of ethnicity. I personally experience racism on a nearly daily basis. I definitely have been discriminated very few times, but often am I alienated, stereotyped, and stared at by "real" Americans.

Somehow, the White (especially Conservative Republican) popluation look at themselves as "real" Americans. Countless times have I been told to "go back to my own country", or asked "what is your nationality?". I don't know how many times I have been called "Chink", or gotten the tug-at-the-corners-of-the-eyes gesture.

I AM AN AMERICAN.
LAA   Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:06 am GMT
Fab,

In scholarly language, I think there would be a specific term or category for my family. Let's take a look at my mother's family. All my grandparents mentioned are maternal grandparents.

My Grandmother - Daughter of Spanish criollo mother, and Spanish criollo father. (100% Spanish)

My Grandfather - Son of Mestizo mother, and son of Spanish criollo father (3/4 Spanish, 1/4 native)

So, my mother is (7/8) Spanish, and (1/8) Native or, 88% Spanish.

My father is Welsh, with French and English elements. I don't know the exact percentage as Anglo-Americans who are supposedly so concered with ethnic origin, do not keep track of such things, the way Mexican-Americans do.

So my genetic breakdown would look something like this:
50% Welsh/English/French mix
50% Spanish, w/ small Native American element

So, there it is. All clear and succinct. As you can see, I don't have an inherent anti-Celtic bias, an anti-Germanic bias, an anti-Francophone bias, or an anti-Native Mesoamerican bias.

I would like to make it clear however to you Fab, that in terms of my physical appearance and identity as percieved by others, I would look Spanish. My father's genetic contribution didn't manifest itself in terms of my appearance, aside from my hands, feet, shape of my toes, etc. That is why in addition to cultural factors, I identify as a Mexican-American of Spanish descent.

Presley,

Did you say you speak Japanese and or Korean in addition to English? Because if you do, I have a question of linguistic nature to ask you, in regard to the relationship shared by Korean and Japanese.
Presley.   Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:10 am GMT
Yes I do. What about Japanese and Korean, LAA?
fab   Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:22 am GMT
LAA,

well, thanks. But, no thanks.

-You- mentioned, "You should come to my house, or to my family get-togethers, which we have every week, and see how "Anglo" the culture and environment is."

okay, where exactly do you live in California?



by the way, what state of Mexico are you from? I've heard you mentioned, Chihuahua...?
LAA   Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:45 pm GMT
Fab,
Is this the real Fab?

I am from Los Angeles and Las Vegas. But as to where my family is from? They are from Chihuahua and Sonora.

I have other family in places like Baja California. And I normally spend a month in the summer there. Just about everyone in my family down there, myself included, are nicknamed "guero", lol.

Presley,

I always though Korean was much closer to Chinese than it was to Japanese. In Korean you hear a lot of one syllabe "bang-wang-wung-sung-xing-xah-sun-yung" words. Japanese has an entirely different phonology. I find pronouncing Japanese to be very easy, because the phonetics are similar to Spanish in many ways.
But, according to linguists, Korean is actually a closer relative to Japanese. It has even been said that the original settlers of Japan had come from the Korean peninsula.

Do you find Korean to seem to closer to Japanese than Chinese?
fab   Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:13 am GMT
LAA

the two precedent posts with my name wer not mine

Je propose d'écrire en français dans mes post comme Greg le fait, comme celà je ne risque pas d'être usurpé par un non-francophone
fab   Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:27 am GMT
LAA,

What's your address?
Johnathan Mark   Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:31 am GMT
"I AM AN AMERICAN"

All that American means is of or from America. There are many different Americas. LAA and Presley, my America is very different than yours (I am from a town in Minnesota). What does it really mean to be an American?
Sergio   Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:32 am GMT
Fab,

Je pense que celà serait une excellent idée!!! I was reading the false Fab, and I was very disapointed.

To the false fab:
>Black people all look the same, just like Asians. (to your eyes, of course, but ask the same to them...)

>Caucasians are so easily distinguishable. (that is very normal if you happen to be caucasian, and I know it because I am caucasian too. Ask the same to black people or Asian people, just out of curiosity)

>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Don't question my opinion, little boy.
Beauty is a very relative concept, nowadays being globally exported by the ideallised western concept of it. You would be astounded though, if you would search in history how different and yes, sometimes contradicting concepts of beauty there has been in humanity, and that just for the recorded information. Think of at least 70,000 years which we don't know anything of.....
LAA   Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:24 am GMT
"Je propose d'écrire en français dans mes post comme Greg le fait, comme celà je ne risque pas d'être usurpé par un non-francophone"

But then I can't understand you! Puede usted escribir en espanol para mi?
Sergio   Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:25 am GMT
LAA,

It wouldn't be something crucial, but just a sort of "signature" to recognize the real fab. Not the whole posting in French, of course. At least, this is my suggestion
Uriel   Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:50 am GMT
<<Uriel... you must that pretty girl in the langcafé, right? By the way, can I ask you what your last name is? Is it one of those iberian names Lopes/Lopez, Soares/Suarez, Mendes/Mendez?>>

That's me -- thank you, sugar! ;)

I bet you can figure my last name out pretty easily -- let's just say that I've gotten used to answering to the similar (but Spanish) name "Alvarez".

Fab, I understand LAA's position about identifying with his hispanic heritage very well, even if it sounds odd to a non-American. Within the US, hispanics -- be they Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, or of other origins -- tend to have a very strong intergroup connection because Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc. tend to form definite subcultures when they congregate in large numbers that differ from the mainstream American culture in significant ways.

As for the difference between "white" and "hispanic", that's a special usage that is peculiar to Americans. It's not really meant to be literal -- hispanics can be just as "guero" as any Scandinavian, of course -- it's more like a shorthand term for the cultural differences. It doesn't mean that Americans really consider "hispanic" a different race. My father and uncle will both joke that they love those "white girls", despite the fact that they are also technically caucasian, and I will usually refer to myself as "half-Portuguese, half-white", even though if you look at my picture, you'll know that I need a lot of sunblock when I go out in the noonday sun...

In a similar vein, you will also sometimes hear hispanics refer to non-hispanics as "anglos" sometimes -- it doesn't mean they think of non-hispanics as all being of British descent.
greg   Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:59 am GMT
LAA : « My father is Welsh, with French and English elements. I don't know the exact percentage as Anglo-Americans who are supposedly so concered with ethnic origin, do not keep track of such things, the way Mexican-Americans do.

So my genetic breakdown would look something like this:
50% Welsh/English/French mix
50% Spanish, w/ small Native American element

So, there it is. All clear and succinct. As you can see, I don't have an inherent anti-Celtic bias, an anti-Germanic bias, an anti-Francophone bias, or an anti-Native Mesoamerican bias. »



Tout ceci est du verbiage car il y manque l'essentiel. Ce qui définit le mieux un homme, ce ne sont pas les "ethnies" dont il serait issu en quelque proportion — dans ce cas on tombe dans le racialisme (dont le spectre s'étend du racisme pur et dur jusqu'à l'ethnoracisme statistique, dont LAA et son gouvernement sont friands —> une constante dans les pays anglo-saxons, en passant par le communautarisme —> le libre-arbitre individuel est subordonné à la collectivisation des individualités).

Non, ce qu'aucun racialisme, communautarisme ou gouvernement ne peut appréhender, c'est la liberté fondamentale des individus d'échapper aux catégorisations grossières et de s'émanciper par la culture au sens large.

Ce que la tirade de LAA indique, c'est que la définition non-ethniciste du terme francophone <anglo-saxon> est particulièrement pertinente car elle s'attache surtout à dénommer des faits culturels (le racialisme et l'ethnicisme en sont un) et non biologiques. L'accumulation désespérée d'héritages ethniques comme pseudo-preuve d'individualité ou d'impartialité montre que LAA n'a pas échappé au déterminisme culturel qui le dépasse.
Uriel   Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:11 am GMT
Uh-oh, this sounds like a familiar conversation, greg! ;)

It might be good to point out that in the US and Europe, the terms "ethnicity" and "race" have somewhat different (even opposite) meanings, so often when Americans and Europeans discuss these matters, we are unwittingly talking apples and oranges, and being misconstrued.